I came across a very useful little acronym.
W.
A.
I.
T.
Why Am I Talking It works on 2 levels. Whether you're infront of a prospect, a network contact or with family and friends, Stephen Covey's 5th habit of highly effective people is "Seek first to understand then to be understood". You've probably heard the cliche "You have 2 ears and one mouth, use them in that order". Well if you ask yourself "why am I talking?", you realise that either you may be talking drivvel or not listening to what your counterpart is actually saying.
The other level it works on is that it helps you to find the time to actually consider what has been said by your prospect, and use that understanding to formulate your next question.
It is a fatal flaw in many salespeople that they spend the time that should be listening, half listening and trying to work out what they're going to ask or answer next.
WAIT and you have time (at least 3-5 seconds) to demonstrate you're taking in what was said by the other party and to formulate a better question.
Does this make sense? Think about that for a moment.
Playing the WAITing game also allows you to draw out so much more information from prospects by using listening noises, body language etc than you might otherwise gain.
Remember .... YOUR JOB IN THE SALE IS TO GATHER INFORMATION NOT TO GIVE IT. Telling isn't selling.
So many of us in sales can't wait to prove our worth, demonstrate our credibility by getting up and presenting. This is a big mistake and will cost you tens of thousands in personal income, year on year. And when you establish the cost in terms of lifetime customer value lost, modifying this one behaviour, the costs can run into the millions. What are you doing to make sure you or your people are WAITing for your prospects to tell you how to sell to them? How do you make sure you're gathering the intelligence you need BEFORE you spill your candy and make your presentation.
PRESENTING IS NOT SELLLING. Don't you gain more credibility from the questions you ask NOT the information you give?
(C) Marcus Cauchi & Sandler Systems Inc 2006
Sales Training London: W.A.I.T. and See - To learn more about this author, visit Marcus Cauchi's Website.
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Marcus Cauchi
(Visit Marcus's Website)
Marcus Cauchi is London's first licensed
Sandler sales trainer. 19 years in direct
sales, he's sold physical products,
services and intangibles with varied
success. Over 16 years he left behind over
£56 million in deals he could have won,
but did because he didn't know any
better. He thought you had to qualify for
needs, present the benefits of your
solution, trial close, follow up with a
proposal or further information and the
close. He learned the hard way that when
you "pitch" a prospect lies to protect
himself. When you present and answer his
questions, he'll steal your ideas. When
you close, he'll mislead you or defer to
a higher authority (boss, wife, CFO) and
then when he's got you to document in
writing (proposals) and give away your
confidential pricing, he'll shop that
around your competitors to get the best
deal. When you follow up for a decision,
he'll give you unlimited access to his
voicemail and hide. Marcus teaches
counter intuitive selling. Average clients
increase revenues by 100-1100% in a year.
He's probably not for you though as it's
difficult and expensive.
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